The overwhelming majority of the ummah declared: “This view is manifestly false, its invalidity known by sheer necessity. It contradicts both sound reason and reliable transmission, and is no more than an innovation repudiated by the Sharīʿah and by the intellect alike.”

The third group replied: “Your error stems from claiming that God is unable to speak and that He does not speak by His own power and will, and from denying that acts can subsist in Him. For my part, I affirm that God speaks by His will and power with speech that subsists in His essence—even though it is temporally originated. I also maintain that temporal events can pertain to Him, and nothing in either the textual proofs or rational arguments rules this out; rather, intellect and revelation together establish it.”

This was the stance adopted by various figures such as Abū Muʿādh al-Tūmanī, Zuhayr al-Atharī, Muḥammad ibn Karrām and his followers, and other groups—among them, it seems, Hishām ibn al-Ḥakam and the like.

Yet these scholars contended that none of God’s speech—indeed, no part of it—is eternal; He speaks after not having spoken, just as He acts after not having acted, so that an infinite regress of beginningless events is avoided and the proof for the world’s createdness remains intact.

They nevertheless concede that He has possessed the capacity to speak from pre-eternity, exactly as you yourselves assert.